Mehbooba Mufti said it was sad to see what the political discourse of the country has been reduced to

Thursday November 22, 2018 7:33 PM, ummid.com News Network

Srinagar/New Delhi: PDP Chief Mehbooda Mufti and NC's Omar Abdullah - both former chief ministers of Jammu & Kashmir, on Thursday hit out at BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav who accused them of working on a script written from "across the border" a clear reference to Pakistan.

"Are we anti-nationals just because our MLAs had enough integrity to stand up to your (BJP) failed attempts of defection?" Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti asked.

Taking to Twitter to respond to Ram Madhav's outrageous remarks, Mehbooba Mufti said it was sad to see what the political discourse of the country has been reduced to.

Mehbooba was responding to Ram Madhav who claimed that both PDP and NC had boycotted the local body polls last month because they had instructions from across the border as he looked to defend Governor Satya Pal Malik for the sudden dissolution of the state assembly on Wednesday night.

“Probably they had fresh instructions from across the border to come together and form the government. What they did prompted the Governor to look into the whole issue,” Madhav told news agency ANI.

Hitting out at Ram Madhav, Mehbooba Mufti asked, "How does one define a party's nationalistic credentials? Nationalistic and patriotic only if you are with the Centre, and Pakistan sponsored and anti-nationalistic otherwise?"

"Both PDP and NC have been allies of BJP at some point. Strange that our credentials werent questioned then,” she said.

Earlier in the day Omar Abdullah of National Conference (NC) had dared Ram Madhav to prove the allegations he levelled against the state's mainstream political parties.

“You have RAW, NIA & IB at your command (CBI too is your parrot) so have the guts to place evidence in the public domain. Don’t practice shoot and scoot politics,” he wrote in a direct reply to the BJP leader.

Madhav asked the former chief minister to take the comment in his stride in his reply, and said it was not meant to question his patriotism or to offend him. “But the sudden love between NC and PDP and the hurry to form the government leads to many suspicions and political comments,” he added.

Abdullah shot back that misplaced attempts at humour won’t work and again dared the BJP to prove the allegation. “You HAVE claimed my party has been acting at the behest of Pakistan. I dare you to prove it! Place the evidence of your allegation of NC boycott of ULB polls at Pak behest in public domain. It’s an open challenge to you & your Govt,” he wrote in another tweet.

Madhav later tweeted that he takes back his comment but followed it up by saying that the two parties should contest the next elections in the state together, to prove that the "love" that prompted them to come together in an alliance was genuine. "Mind you it’s a political comment,not personal," he tweeted.